I switched over to the laptop and checked GoDaddy for viralworthy.com and it was available. I grabbed it. I mean, why not? If I could easily post the stuff that I think is really worthy of attention, I become a filter for others. If people happen to like the way I filter, maybe they’ll pay attention to my website.

A few weeks ago I had stumbled upon a site called waxinandmilkin.com that was very simple, just great pictures and comments. It was elegant, simple, and engaging. I liked their taste. I liked it so much that I poked into their source code and saw they used a site called Tumblr to create their blog. I made a mental note–must do something with Tumblr.

You see where this is going, right? In less than 1 hour, http://viralworthy.com went live. I plugged in a few quick favorite videos, a quote about advertising, and set up my Twitter, Gmail, Disqus, and Facebook feeds. I downloaded the Tumblr iPhone app, scheduled a few posts for later release, and I’m rolling. Easy Peasy. Too easy.

The experience has left me with a number of unanswerable questions that can be distilled to this: When creating a web destination is so easy, does it diminish value or enhance value of the web community? I’m glad it’s easy. But I’m also glad that I don’t make my living designing web pages anymore. Both web design and programming have become a commodity. And when the bar is lowered, the noise floor rises exponentially. It becomes increasingly more difficult to find the quality among the rubbish.

The more the bar is lowered, the more filtering we need. The best filters will always be people that you trust and respect. Brands who engage in social media should take notice. The more noise in your channel, the more people will tune you out. Understand what your social media priorities are and keep them in focus. Be dynamic, be personal, but don’t make noise for its own sake. We have enough of that already, thank you.

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The answer is simple. They knew it would be a touchdown. It had already run on YouTube for months prior to the Super Bowl, and garnered more than 1 million views. People liked it, and shared their feedback. Smart advertisers test before they spend their budget on placement. One million voices said “run it”.

The real genius behind Google’s Parisian Love commercial is that it’s incredibly easy to riff on. By this time next year, Parisian Love may prove to be the most parodied and imitated commercial of all time. You don’t need actors, animation chops, or even Photoshop. With a few basic software tools, wit, humor, and a tendency toward the subversive, you can create your own version of Parisian Love in an afternoon. And when you do, it will most likely end up on YouTube, another Google property. They really can’t lose.

Let’s see what delightfully deviant ideas spring out of Parisian Love, and see if we can measure the “viral-ness” of Google’s Super Bowl investment.

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With Facebook, massively multiplayer online games, Twitter and Skype, chat remains a popular means of communication, though it’s usually referred to as “texting” now. If you’re new to text messaging, you might be confused by some of the acronyms you encounter. Here’s a glossary that will get you started on the right foot.

AAMOF – As A Matter Of Fact
AFAIK – As Far As I Know
AFK – Away From Keyboard
ASAP – As Soon As Possible
BBL – Be Back Later
BRB – Be Right Back
BTW – By The Way
CU – see you
CUL8R – see you Later
EZ – Easy
F2F – Face to Face
FAQ – Frequently Asked Questions
FWIW – For What It’s Worth
FYI – For Your Information
GG – Good Game
GTG – Got To Go
HAND – Have A Nice Day
HTH – Hope That Helps
IAC – In Any Case
IIRC – If I Remember Correctly
J/K – Just Kidding
IMHO – In My Humble Opinion
IMNSHO – In My Not-So-Humble Opinion
IMO – In My Opinion
IOW – In Other Words
IRL – In Real Life
LOL – Laughing Out Loud
NRN – No Reply Necessary
OMG – Oh My God
OTOH – On The Other Hand
ROFL – Rolling On the Floor Laughing
ROFLMAO – Rolling On the Floor Laughing My Ass Off
THX – Thanks
TIA – Thanks In Advance
TTYL8R – Talk To You Later
WTF – What The F**k

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The rumor mill is churning about an impending tablet computer from Apple. Referred to as the iSlate by those who like to step out on a limb, the device is supposed to have many iPhone-like features including gesture navigation and a touch-sensitive screen. If you have faith in Apple as a technology innovator, you may think it’s going to be the greatest gadget of 2010, or you might think that it will be just another tablet-PC flop. I think the former is true, and here’s why.

Tablet computers have been around for several years, but the current crop of tablets are little more than laptop computers retrofitted with touch screens and running a special version of Microsoft Windows. If you are looking at the potential of a slate device as another take on the tablet PC, you are missing the mark. The real potential comes clear when you consider other kinds of devices that have streamed into our lives and the potential to both replace them and make the user experience better.

Portable Video Players
We grew up in a television culture, and we still watch our favorite shows–we just don’t schedule our lives around the tv anymore. We Tivo, buy DVDs, and take our shows on the road. DVD players are limited by the number of discs you are willing to haul around and risk damaging. Portable players with their own storage are hampered by the difficulty in converting discs to something you can take with you. Apple has already solved this problem but Apple players are limited to iPods and iPhones. A portable device with a larger screen would be a perfect player for movies purchased through iTunes.

Ebook Readers
Reading a book on a computer isn’t an enjoyable experience, but the Amazon Kindle has proven that paper isn’t what makes books better, it’s portability and simplicity. The Kindle is a joy to use but it only works for text and simple graphics. Those gorgeous art books or magazines that use photography to tell a story lose their appeal on a Kindle. Apple technology raises the bar with a full color screen and page-turning gestures.

Netbooks
Not everyone needs a computer that does it all. Netbooks easily handle lightweight work like text editing and web surfing, but their greatest drawback is that they are just laptop computers with cut corners, encumbering users with slow speed, awkward screen dimensions and diminutive keyboards. Still, we buy them in huge numbers, proving there is a demand for light, portable web terminals. The only thing standing between Apple’s iPhone technology and a reinvention of the netbook is size. Make a bigger iPod Touch and you’ll have an awesome netbook.

Handheld Game Consoles
The Nintendo Game Boy has been around for 20 years and it continues to dominate the portable game niche. Apple’s iPhone has emerged as a next-generation game console with impressive results. A number of important game franchises have introduced iPhone versions of their games and sales have been through the roof. While the iPhone gaming experience compares favorably to the Nintendo DS, it doesn’t come close to the immersive experience of games on a desktop computer. An Apple gaming device with large screen, motion-sensing technology would redefine portable gaming with an immersive, augmented reality experience that, with the right game development, could be a great physical workout and a real game-changer for Apple’s next big thing.

It may be just rumors, but I can’t wait to learn what Apple has been hiding!

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Websites are going through a transition, but when haven’t they? Sites used to be coded in HTML, then evolved through Flash applications, style sheet layouts, and Javascript interactivity. The best way to build changes almost as quickly as popular fashion. If your site is at least three years old, there’s a good chance that it’s out of fashion.

All of the cutting-edge sites today are sporting a content management system (CMS) behind that snappy interface. The CMS lets you add your own articles, pictures and menu items without enlisting a team of programmers. Once your site is built, you can furnish it the way you like, and keep furnishing it as often as you want.

When choosing a CMS you have four choices, commercial, open source, custom, or hosted solutions. Here are the fundamental advantages and disadvantages of each:

A commercial CMS is one that you purchase from a vendor. It typically comes with a licensing agreement and basic support, with higher levels of support available for a fee. For companies that want reliability and long term vendor support, this is a good choice. This is also the most expensive solution, and is not necessarily better than the other options.

Open source is a highly popular choice for many. The explosive growth of the internet can be largely attributed to open source software. The advantage is interoperability and a worldwide network of people who use open source platforms. The disadvantage is that you may still need experts to help track down bugs and add special features. You can find commercial support, though it’s not always local.

Custom solutions are an obvious choice for the programmers who know how to write the code. Because they understand what every line of code is for, they can troubleshoot every problem that arises, and they can make the site do whatever a customer wants. Custom solutions are far more flexible than other approaches. On the other hand, when the programmer makes a career change, the client might be left with a dead end.

Hosted solutions are increasingly popular for many types of applications, but the most popular example is a blog site. You can host your own open source Wordpress blog on your server, or you can have a blog at Wordpress.com at no cost. The difference is in support and flexibility. Hosted solutions tend to be focused on certain types of sites are much less flexible in terms of individual customization, but you also do not need any technical expertise whatsoever to support your site. You may have to give up some space for advertising, or pay a monthly fee for the services you use.

In the end, the right choice depends on your particular needs and everyone’s needs are different. It’s best to consult with someone who can assess your web development needs and help guide you toward a solution that fits your company. If you’d like help deciding, tell me about your business needs, and I’ll try to guide you toward the best solution.

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Driving to work yesterday I noticed a billboard that was hung upside-down. I glanced at it out of the corner of my eye and wondered if the outdoor advertising company hired idiots to hang their boards. Later that day, I saw the same billboard in another location, also upside-down. I felt sorry for the guys who had to hang it, because they probably have more sense than the people who told them how to do their job.

Advertising is effective when you send the right message to the right audience using the right method of delivery. The billboard in question is for a car dealer, and their message is OPEN SUNDAY. Outdoor advertising is the right medium because the signs are placed where people who drive will see them. The message was good, the delivery method matched the audience, yet they took a simple formula and screwed it up. They disrupted the delivery and damaged the message.

Outdoor advertisers struggle with the same problem that online advertisers face. How do you insure an ad gets noticed in an ad saturated landscape? Bright colors, drawing outside the lines, adding dimension, and yes, flipping things over are all effective ways of getting noticed. It is commonly recognized among the outdoor advertising community that turning a message upside-down increases its noticeability. But that doesn’t mean it’s good for the brand. In theory, everything you do contributes to brand resonance. If a device for getting noticed doesn’t also reinforce the message, it’s not resonant; it’s disruptive.

Online advertising is chock full of attention-grabbing opportunities. In the end, it’s not about being noticed, it’s about being heard. And if the message resonates, it will stay in the mind. I got the car dealer’s message, but it didn’t resonate with me. It wasn’t persuasive, it wasn’t clever. It might have even turned me off a little. Mostly, it was a squandered opportunity to make an enduring impression.

Do something resonant, and your impression will endure. At the very least, make sure the message you want your audience to hear isn’t tripped while walking down the aisle.

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Advertising agencies love Flash sites because you can create a visually rich presentation experience that is unique and fresh. Many brands love Flash for the same reasons. But Flash has come under fire in recent years for a variety of reasons. From a workflow perspective, Flash is such a controlled environment that it is much more difficult to add content and new navigation items than is possible with a content managed HTML site. And from a search engine perspective, Flash doesn’t help your efforts to be discovered.

You can have your Flash and find it too, if your flash site is built with an understanding of what the search engines can and cannot read. For example, text that is embedded in your Flash files can be indexed by Google, but text that is pulled in from an external data source is not.

It is vital that your site’s search engine results create an optimized presentation of your content. You want each search result to link to a state within Flash that you determine. Also, each section of content should have its own URL, so that it appears in the search engine as a separate result.

If you build a Flash site, it’s very important to offer an alternative HTML content site so that users who do not have a Flash plug-in can still view your content. The experience won’t be the same, but it can still be good.

Finally, consider the option of using Flash judiciously as elements within a site. You can create rich, interactive experiences within a page, and offer alternative static images or javascript-energized code as a replacement for those who aren’t flash-ready. This is perhaps the most viable option, and certainly my favorite, because you can have the benefits of Flash while making the rest of your site easy to manage and update.

The state of Flash and Search is constantly changing. What is impossible today, might be trivial in another year. It’s important to keep up with the latest changes and adjust your online strategy to exploit the best opportunities. Everybody has a favorite Flash site. What’s yours?

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Do you believe computers can change the world? In 1992 I fell into a debate with my then-girlfriend about computer technology and online communities. To her, computers were a waste of time, a distraction from things that really mattered. She was a writer. She wrote with pen and pad. I was a computer junkie, desktop publisher, and online forum moderator. I wrote too, but my writing was conversational and with people I only knew through my screen and keyboard.

She resigned her side of the debate when I spoke passionately about how the online world could change society, education, nationalism, and everything. I argued that in the computer world, people were not judged by age, gender, economic status, accent, or country of origin. You were valued based on what you said and how you said it. That was before online video, photographic avatars, and social media sites that share your birthday and “which sex in the city character you are most like”.

Slowly I watched my revolution take place, while at the same time, I watched my utopian dreams shattered by spam, porn, gambling, big media, and online shopping. The old networks are gone, replaced by the internet, which has expanded into an unimaginably brilliant universe where the best and the worst of everything co-exists. Still, I never forgot my dream.

How we spend our time online is up to us. We can watch reruns of “The Family Guy” or we can attend lectures at Harvard or Stanford from anywhere in the world. We can shop until we drop, or we can invest in people’s future through micro-financing sites like Kiva.org. Ultimate, how we spend our time defines us.

I recently decided to use some of my time differently. I created a social networking site built around the simple idea of kindness. The site brings together people and humanitarian organizations in a new way. My reasoning is that there is strength in numbers and a community of kind people can impact the world meaningfully beneficent ways.

Are you activating social change through social media? How are you making a difference? Tell me at KindLike.Us

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Have you ever come across a conversation like this, either on line or in person?

Person 1: I’d like to know what people think about the color Red. Red is used frequently, but is it the best color? Can Red be improved? Let’s talk about it.

Person 2: Red is a nice color.

Person 1: We’ve already established that. Why don’t you say something new about Red?

Person 2: I like Red. I also like other colors that are in the Red family, especially the family of Autumn colors.

Person 1: There’s no such thing as “Autumn colors” You can see every color in Autumn.

Person 3: Green. It’s far more attractive and soothing than Red.

Person 1: You don’t know what you’re talking about. There are many greens that are far more jarring than Red.

Person 3: I’m talking about the soothing Greens.

Person 1: You said Green. Not Some Greens. Now you are changing your position.

Person 3: I meant the more soothing Greens.

Person 1: Yet that’s not what you said. Besides, I started this out asking about Red. You haven’t said anything constructive about Red. You really don’t know how to have a constructive conversation.

Person 3: You are an idiot. I’m out of here.

Person 1: You are only giving up because you cannot support a healthy debate. It seems like I’m the only person who understands Red.

Person 4: If you think nobody else understands Red, why did you ask for other opinions?

Person 1: I didn’t say that nobody else understands Red. You are putting words in my mouth.

Person 4: This IS idiotic. I’m leaving too.

Person 1: Person 2, we haven’t heard from you lately. We were having a good conversation. What else do you think about Red?

Person 1: Red is a decent color, but we could make it better if we could work together to identify its weakness and make them stronger.

Person 1: It seems like nobody really cares about Red as much as I do.

As a community moderator, you will occasionally come across someone in a forum who appears at first to be a valuable contributor but serves to alienate many other readers and participants. The above conversation is a contrived example of what sometimes happens within online communities, but it’s not a far stretch. If you are in the role of being the community moderator, it’s your job to deal with the conflicts and issues these people create. But how?

There is no right answer. Each situation is going to be different because the dynamics of the community and those involved in the conflicts will create a unique set of issues. Some communities welcome a benevolent monarch who looks out for the community’s well being. Others prefer anarchy and react strongly to any show of rank that places one above the others. Yet in every case, the goal is the same. Reduce the conflict without creating a larger one by your actions as moderator.

Online communities generally react strongly to unilateral decisions by the moderators. To keep peace within the community you need to be fair to a fault. You need to consider all options, and give advance warning of your intended action to get buy-in from a majority of the community. If you do not get buy-in, it’s probably the wrong action.

Always treat your community with respect and it will flourish.

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They’re ubiquitous, obtrusive, and sometimes excruciatingly annoying, but banner ads have been the primary advertising vehicle of the web for more than a decade. Most are seen and ignored by the viewer. Some are as irritating as a carnival game hawker, trying as hard as they might to get your click-through. We’ve all learned, either from confirmed suspicions or experience, to avoid them at all cost, and as a result, they’re not the most effective vehicle for getting your message out.

But if you don’t advertise, you don’t get seen. Banner ads are one of the easiest ways to rent a piece of property on someone else’s high-traffic url. As a business model, it can be valued, tracked, and measured for success. If you don’t spend a dime on banner advertising, your internet marketing campaign may never get off the ground.

The first problem with a banner ad is that the viewer is usually interested in driving to their destination, and they see your banner advertisement as a distraction. The viewer has more interest in what they’re trying to accomplish than in what you’re trying to sell, so they don’t give the banner ad much value unless it appears to be a more direct route toward their intended destination. That doesn’t happen very often, which leads to the second problem. The result of clicking on a banner ad almost always leads to disappointment. It’s like someone changing the channel during your favorite television show to make you watch the commercial on another channel. Yuck.

The solution is simple–promise and deliver. Promise the viewer that when they click on your banner ad, they’re going to find exactly what you tell them is there, and when they click on it, give them exactly that, and exceed their expectations. Inform and delight them. Entertain them. Reward them. Make them glad they clicked on your banner ad. Be consistent in never failing to delight and reward the viewer. Do that, and people will look forward to finding your banner ads when they surf the web. Can you imagine that? An advertising campaign where people look forward to being distracted every time they see one of your banner ads?

Banner ads are an invitation to party. If you have a reputation for throwing the best parties in town, everyone will want to come. If you are known for the lamest parties, who’s going to bother? Banner ads without a pay-off are a waste of money, and they squander your credibility. If you can’t deliver the goods, stop spending your cash. Get your marketing campaign on track. Create an advertising vehicle that rewards the viewer when they visit your landing page. Then start advertising. The results will be slow at first, but once you gain a reputation for consistently rewarding your visitors for banner click-throughs, you will be astonished with the results, and the return from your investment in banner advertising will make you a winner.

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